Monday, March 30, 2015

A fascinating
interview with the newly elected member of the Greek Parliament, Costas Lapavitsas,
recently appeared in the periodical Jacobin.
[1]

Costas Lapavitsas

Lapavitsas, who
represents Syriza in Parliament, is a well-known left wing economist and a self-described Marxist. And unlike the Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, Lapavitsas
is no "erratic Marxist" but is very much at home in the language of
orthodox Marxism. He says that he is in favor of a socialist revolution
and would like to see that come about in Greece and throughout the world.
He even invokes the Bolsheviks, favorably mentioning Lenin and Bukharin.

However when we take a
closer look at his statements, it becomes plain that his form of Marxism is
much closer to the Menshevik variety than to Bolshevism. He says,

“You don’t need a
socialist revolution, and you don’t need to overthrow capitalism at every
minute of the day to do small things. Of course, we aim for the overthrow of
capitalism, and of course ultimately we would like to see the socialist
revolution. But that’s not in the cards at the moment.”

Setting aside the
straw man of those calling for the “overthrow of capitalism at every minute of
the day”, Lapavitsas clearly expresses
the notion that while he thinks socialism is a good idea in some vague and
distant future, it is not a realistic possibility in the immediate future or
even in what he calls the “mid term”. Instead, he thinks that in the near and mid term the best
that we can hope for is a more benevolent form of capitalism. And he thinks this completely achievable,

“You don’t need
socialist revolution in Greece, and you don’t need to overthrow capitalism in
Greece to get rid of austerity. You don’t.”

This in itself is
hardly an unusual position within Syriza.
After all, Syriza’s election manifesto promised to put an end to
austerity without in any way challenging capitalism. But what puts Lapavitsas in conflict with
the majority of his colleagues in Syriza is his thesis that Syriza must abandon
its commitment to remain within the EU and make plans to break from the
Euro. He thinks that policy of
remaining within the EU that has been carried out by all the previous
governments, whether they were Pasok or New Democracy, and now Syriza, has been
a disaster. He emphasizes this point several times in the course of the
interview,

“…you certainly need
to get rid of the institutional framework of the euro. That simple position is
not understood — or is not widely appreciated — within Syriza and not within
the European left, and that has been a tragedy for years.”

What I found
interesting in reading the interview with Lapavitsas was not his politics, which is that of a garden variety reformist
social-democrat of the old type – in contrast to the new type of social
democats whom you can find in the German Social Democratic Party or in New
Labour in the UK, who have adopted neo-liberal
economic policies. Nor are his
differences about the Euro with the majority of Syriza that interesting. Indeed the
likelihood is that exiting from the Euro will become the prevailing view
within Syriza in the next few months as the impossibility of remaining in the
EU becomes more and more apparent.

But by far what is most
interesting in this interview was Lapavitsas’ discussion of what concrete
policies need to be implemented to bring about a Grexit. He calls this ‘Plan B’. He
summarizes some of the measures required for the implementation of Plan B as
follows:

“So the government
would have to impose capital controls immediately, and it would have to impose
bank controls immediately. It goes without saying. It would have to do what the
EU did in the Cyprus case. Now, how long these controls will last and what form
they will take will be a matter of how the situation unfolds. They will
certainly last for a significant length of time. And some form of capital
controls will of course remain, as they ought to…

Then the state will
have to intervene once it has nationalized the banks and re-denominated their
balance sheets, to restructure the banks. The banks need reorganization to see
which banks will remain and on what terms. That’s a process that will take some
time, and it will not be easy.”

Capital controls and
nationalization of the banks are quite radical policies. Lapavitsas later even
admits that the economic policies he is proposing will necessarily lead to some
form of rationing. The radicalism of
these policies must be understood however within the broader context of radicalism
to what end? For Lapavitsas the end is clearly to save capitalism, if
not exactly the kind of capitalism of the Eurozone. He frankly acknowledges
the pedigree of his proposals in the theories of John Maynard Keynes,

“Keynes and
Keynesianism, unfortunately, remain the most powerful tools we’ve got, even as
Marxists, for dealing with issues of policy in the here and now…

Marxism is about
overturning capitalism and heading towards socialism. It has always been about
that, and it will remain about that. Keynesianism is not about that. It’s about
improving capitalism and even rescuing it from itself. That’s exactly right.”

One could hardly ask
for a clearer statement of the direction of the official Left wing of
Syriza. And Lapavitsas admits that his
brand of “orthodox” Marxism pretty much amounts to the same thing as the
“erratic Marxism” of Yanis Varoufakis.

But whatever one
thinks of the policies themselves one has to acknowledge that Lapavitsas
criticism of much of the Left, that they have never thought through any
concrete policies, is on the mark. He
says,

“There’s a traditional
saying in Greek that a man who doesn’t want to get married keeps getting
engaged. Well that’s what the Communists have been doing, unfortunately.
Because they don’t want to tackle the question of dealing with the situation in
the here and now, they talk about revolution.

So, if you do that,
you don’t have to confront the question of the euro. You pretend the question
of the euro is somehow either a minor question or a side question or whatever.
Or you elevate things beyond: what you need is to get out of the European
Union, to get out of NATO, to get out of this, that, and the other thing. In other
words, you’re not offering any specific answers, because you’re answering
everything.”

And while Lapavitsas
remarks here are directed specifically against the Stalinist Communist Party of
Greece (KKE), they could just as easily
apply to much of the Left. The KKE has a history of combining the worst sort of
opportunism with a dogmatic sectarianism. So while they have had no problem in
the past in participating in coalition governments with the bourgeoisie, they
have steadfastly refused all demands for joint action in any of the
demonstrations or general strikes against the previous Pasok and New Democracy
governments. And the KKE, like most
sectarian outfits, steadfastly avoids putting forward any concrete policy
proposals in its platforms but instead rely on abstract slogans. Lapavitsas criticisms are certainly justified
when it comes to these sectarian outfits (which Lapavitsas tries to identify
with the entire Left.)

On the other hand, the
opportunist ANTARSYA coalition ran in the last elections on a platform that has
been correctly characterized as one of “left nationalism”. It made an alliance with the MARS group which
has been advocating a return to the drachma. Unlike the sectarians ANTARSYA did have lots
of “concrete proposals.” In fact they advocated
policies not so different than those proposed by Lapavitsas. As one observer noted, for ANTARSYA,

“…the best alternative
to a program of reform is to offer a rival program of greater reforms. In this
revolutionaries are different from reformists principally in that they ask for
more.” [2]

The author of those
remarks also notes that ANTARSYA saw its role as that of playing a game of
one-upmanship against Syriza,

“So Syriza offered
Greek nationality to the children of all migrants; and, like a poker player,
Antarsya “raised” them by offering to legalize all immigrants in
Greece.”

But this raises an
important question. What would a
revolutionary alternative to Syriza look like?
It would certainly not be the vacuous slogans offered by sectarians. Lapavitsas
makes a valid point in that regard. But neither would it be Lapavitsas “Plan B”
or the more radical version of “Plan B”
offered by groups like ANTARSYA.

Let’s call the
alternative Plan C, the socialist alternative.
And unlike Lapavitsas, for us
socialism is not a dim goal in a far
removed future, but an objective we can
begin to move towards immediately and realize well within the span of one
generation. The socialist alternative implies the reorganization of society on
the basis of production for need instead of production for profit. It does mean
that Greece’s future lies not with the EU or with a return to the drachma based
on some kind of revival of Greek capitalism, but on the establishment of the
Socialist United States of Europe. But how
does this come about? Contrary to the sectarian
ultra left groups, fighting for the socialist revolution internationally does not mean we are absolved from developing
concrete policy proposals for the here
and now. In that respect Lapavitsas has
a valid point. What then would the
concrete proposals needed to fill out Plan C look like?

To elaborate such
policies involves some degree of speculation,
and by that I don’t mean elaborating a purely imaginary plan but
something more like a thought experiment based on historical
precedents whose applicability is very tentative and projections based on a
course of events that cannot be predicted with any degree of precision. Given that caveat, the exercise may nevertheless
prove useful to those seriously working toward a socialist alternative for
Greece. I will outline what I think are some of the key economic issues that
need to be addressed. There are clearly
other issues relating to foreign policy, political organization, science and
culture, etc that also need to be addressed in a serious program dealing with the
transition to socialism. These could perhaps be the topic of a separate essay.

First of all one has
to acknowledge that any such program cannot under any circumstances be
implemented by Syriza, not only because Syriza is wedded to a program of
reforms within capitalism despite its rhetoric, but also because by its nature the
transition to socialism cannot be entrusted solely to the vehicle of
parliamentary politics. It will require
action from the ground up, by the masses taking their destiny into their own
hands and creating their own forms of organization. It is
also inconceivable that such actions can succeed without a trained
revolutionary leadership. Nevertheless, in keeping with our thought experiment,
let us imagine that Syriza was a genuine revolutionary organization. In that case
it could do plenty, even within the framework of parliamentary politics, to
encourage a powerful movement by the
masses.

So in this thought experiment we would be
imagining what policies would be advocated by a parliamentary party, which unlike
the real Syriza, saw the alternative to austerity as the inauguration
of socialism.

And the first thing we
can say is that many of the policy proposals suggested by Lapavitsas would
indeed be instituted immediately by a socialist government. An exit from the
Euro would certainly be one of the first measures that would need to be
implemented. Capital controls to prevent the flight of capital out of the
country and the nationalization of the banks would also follow. Even a form of rationing would undoubtedly be
necessary in order to deal with the inevitable shock of a sudden transition to
a different economic system. One can say
that these are “Keynesian” policies, although their purpose would be very different
than that envisioned by Lapavitsas. They
would be measures on the road to socialism instead of measures meant to “save
capitalism from itself”. The context of such measures makes all the difference.
Such measures by themselves are certainly not “socialist”. They are clearly undertaken within the framework of a market economy. But such measures will be necessary for a
period of time as the economy is in transition to socialism. To imagine that no period of transition is
required to go from the rule of the law of value to the society of associated
producers is sheer fantasy, especially for a small country like Greece that at
least for a period, can be expected to be relatively isolated. Clearly
replacing the mechanism of the market that governs the production, distribution
and consumption of an entire nation with another, completely new mechanism, is
not a trivial task and if not thought through on the basis of the best
available expert knowledge could have catastrophic consequences. In all likelihood, even under the best of
circumstances, the transition will be
accompanied by a period of perhaps severe privations, even worse than those
suffered by the austerity measures imposed by the EU. A revolutionary government would honestly
explain that to its supporters. If the
masses believe in the prospect of socialism and are involved at every level of
democratic decision making they will agree to the sacrifices required. Most left wing groups who have not thought
deeply about the implications of the
transition to socialism, seem to have forgotten this. This was a point once made by George Orwell,
though writing in a very different context, on the victory of the Labour Party
after World War II and the repudiation of Churchill’s leadership.

“The weakness of all left-wing
parties is their inability to tell the truth about the immediate future. When
you are in opposition, and are trying to win support for a new economic and
political programme it is your job to make people discontented, and you will
inevitably do it by telling them that they will be better off in a material
sense when the new programme is introduced. You probably don’t tell them, what
may very well be true, that they won't experience these benefit immediately,
but only after, say, twenty years. The British people have never been warned, i.e.
by the Left, that the introduction of Socialism may mean a serious drop in the
standard of living.” [3]

Orwell’s estimate of
20 years is needlessly pessimistic, but he is undoubtedly correct in his main
point, that a transition to socialism will entail a period of deprivation and
that a party that advocates this course needs to be honest about it. Lapavitsas also, speaking as a professional
economist, recognizes that a transition period will entail a period of perhaps
severe deprivation. He says that even a “controlled exit” from the Euro would
lead to worsening of conditions for workers,

“...wages must rise,
but even if they rise, you’re not going to go back to where you were. It’s just
not feasible at the moment. We need a growth strategy for that.”

Given the reality of a
period of deprivation, why then continue to advocate a strategy of “saving
capitalism” when one can embrace a strategy of a transition to socialism. Why
go through all that pain for such a
meagre “gain”?

In any case a revolutionary
government, while recognizing the necessity of sacrifices, would adopt a goal of
minimizing them as far as possible and speed the transition to socialism. That will mean looking for assistance from
the international working class and the establishment of socialist regimes in
other countries. Were Greece to embark on the road to socialism it could in
turn spark political movements in other countries. But even so, assistance from abroad will not
happen overnight and until that is forthcoming the new regime must work out a
plan for survival in the face of the near certain cut off of credit and trade
by the EU and North America. An economic
boycott will be a certainty once the government repudiates the debts. One can
expect that trade relations with countries that may be sympathetic to the new
government may ease the burden. Russia,
China,Venezuela could possibly fill in some of the gap caused by the end of
trade with the EU.

Many details would have
to be worked out. A plan for regulating what for a time would be a “mixed” economy
would have to be developed. Some
enterprises, especially smaller ones, should be allowed to and even encouraged
to continue operations on a for profit basis, though now they would be managed
by and run democratically by their workers.
A master plan for regulating the chain of supply and demand in each
industry and in the different branches of agriculture and their place in the
overall economy would have to be worked out.
Finally, an analysis of how each industry and the economy as a whole
impacts the environment and the climate would have to be integrated into any
economic plan. This would clearly
require the combined expertise of specialists in economics and the social
sciences as well experts within each industry. It would be an opportunity to
harness the enthusiasm of students and
professionals in these fields and bring them together with workers in
the different industries all working together cooperatively to come up with a
viable economic plan.

There are of course
some historical precedents the new government could examine for assisting it in
formulating its economic policies, especially the policies adopted by the
Bolsheviks immediately after their seizure of power. But these are likely to be of only limited
value given the vastly different circumstances of Russia in 1917 and Greece in
2015. Without discounting the rich history of lessons to be absorbed from a close study
of the policies of the Bolsheviks and other historical precedents, the new
government would be largely on its own blazing new trails in the making of
history. Which is not to deny that they will have a vastly changed potential
for coordinating economic planning and democratic participation as a result of
the communications revolution brought on through the Internet.

We can continue this
thought experiment in more detail, but the basic outline is clear enough. A real
alternative to austerity is neither the wishful thinking or sloganeering of
sectarians or the kind of false pragmatism of Lapavitsas. Rather it means thinking concretely and
deeply about what policies are entailed for a genuinely practical transition to
socialism.

There is one last
point in Lapavitsas interview that is worth a comment. At one point he takes to tasks those Leftists
who think that politics determines everything.
He says,

“Geopolitics and
domestic politics, the balance of political forces, that’s what Marxism has been reduced to,
unfortunately. And, when you do that, when you commence with the politics — the
balance of forces domestically or internationally — it is easy to engage in
flights of fancy. It is easy to begin to think that, in the end, everything is
politics, and therefore you can change the balance of political forces, and
anything is achievable.

Well, I’m sorry,
that’s not the case. And that’s not Marxism. As Marxists, we believe that
politics, in the end is derivative of the material reality of economic and
class relations. That’s a very, very profound statement by Karl Marx, so long
as it is understood properly, so long as it’s not mechanical. The bottom line
is this statement means that not everything is possible through politics.”

Here I would have to
say that Lapavitsas is at once correct and incorrect. It is true that many so-called Marxists
engage in “flights of fancy”, that is to
say they view the possibilities for action simply within the framework of political action
without paying any attention to the constraints imposed by the economy. But while Lapavitsas is correct in pointing
out that for Marxists, “politics, in the end is derivative of the material
reality of economic and class relations”,
he forgets that there is a dialectical relationship between economics
and politics and that is also a truism for Marxists. Although economics is certainly the final
determinant in shaping the configuration of a society the political struggle
can be the decisive factor in either opening or closing off an avenue of
economic development at a critical moment.
Lapavitsas would have done well to recall an observation of Trotsky’s,
who in writing on the impact of the Stalinist bureaucracy on the Soviet economy,
noted the critical role of political forces,

“The processes of
economic construction are not yet taking place within a classless society. The
questions relating to the allotment of the national income compose the central
focus of the plan… All these questions by their very nature do not allow for a
priori decisions by the bureaucracy, which has fenced itself off from
intervention by concerned millions.

The struggle between
living interests, as the fundamental factor of planning, leads us into the
domain of politics, which is concentrated economics.” [4]

Lapavitsas “forgets”
this part of the dialectical relationship between politics and economics
because he has decided to limit his choices to that between continuing the Euro
and more austerity or Plan B, a transition to the drachma and a hopeless form
of Greek capitalism. He removes from the
table any consideration of the real alternative to the Euro, Plan C, the transition to socialism.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The workers of the
VIOME factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, which was bankrupt and abandoned
by its owner, have occupied their workplace and have managed
it themselves since February of 2013. Their struggle is well known
and widely supported both in Greece and
internationally.

But suddenly, the
lawyers of the former capitalist owner have re-appeared and filed a
law suit against the workers in an attempt to take back the factory
and the land surrounding it so that it can be sold. The trial will take place
on March
23.

In the following week the
VIOME workers, supported by the workers of the public Radio-TV station ERT3 of Thessaloniki, who have also occupied and managed their workplace
since June 2013, will initiate a powerful action on behalf of all
workers in Greece. (See our previous article on the ERT workers, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2015/03/workers-self-management-at-occupied.html
) They will lead a caravan, marching throughout Greece to publicize their cause and demand that the new government implement Syriza’s
pre-election promises to secure their just social rights.

The Solidarity
Committee of the VIOME workers is asking that statements of solidarity be
widely publicized internationally and forwarded to the following address:

A press conference
detailing the upcoming trial and the Caravan will be held on behalf of the
VIOME workers on March 18. Statements of
support that can be presented to the press and the court would be welcome.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Introduction

VIOME occupied factory in Thessaloniki

We just received a letter from Savas Michael-Matsas, Secretary of
the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece. The letter summarizes the
zig zags of Syriza's leadership since winning the election on Jan 25 till their
capitulation to the Eurogroup on Feb 20. But in sharp contrast to the
pseudo-Marxists of the WSWS and other Internet sectarians, Michael-Matsas draws
a cogent conclusion from this analysis:

Revolutionaries should not be rejoicing
for all this saying to the pauperized people who invested their
hopes in Syriza, "you are idiots for supporting Syriza, we told you
so!".

It does not
take the accumulated wisdom of Marxism to have predicted that Syriza, given its
adherence to the program of - in the words of Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis
- “Saving capitalism from itself”, would not be able to carry out its election
promises. Indeed we made that very point
on Jan 25 when we reprinted the election statement of the EEK. We wrote then,

As the EEK statement points out, SYRIZA will not be able to meet the expectations of those who will be voting for it. [1]

But this is
not the end of revolutionary politics.
Indeed it is only a bare beginning. For the sectarian denunciators the
capitulation of Syriza’s leadership to the blackmail tactics of the Eurogroup
is nothing more than an “I told you so” moment.
They are completely clueless about the next step. All they can do is pat themselves on the back
for having their perspective “confirmed”.
If you ask them what initiative they propose to make a dent in the
consciousness of the working class and win them to revolutionary socialist
policies as the only alternative to austerity, they simply roll their eyes in
disbelief. “The masses MUST read our web site then join our movement because we
correctly predicted the betrayal of Syriza.”
This is not revolutionary politics but a rather sad parody of it.

We are
printing excerpts from Michael-Matsas letter because in contrast to the
lifeless approach of the Internet sectarians, he is proposing a set of bold
initiatives that could potentially transform the political situation in
Greece. It is of course by no means
guaranteed that the EEK will succeed in this endeavor. But an important element of revolutionary
politics is the art of testing the temper of the masses. The proposed march of workers from
Thessaloniki to Athens strikes us as exactly the right approach for a small
revolutionary movement to take in this situation.

Writing in
1931 Leon Trotsky gave some advice to the Communist Party of Spain that has
some bearing on the political dynamics in Greece today. He pointed to the need
for bold initiatives in a situation in which reformist groups, much like
Syriza today, held the allegiance of the great majority of the masses. He
sharply criticized the policies of the Communist Party, which was then going
through a sectarian phase, for their lack of initiatives and their refusal to
join in common struggle with the masses who were under the sway of the
reformists:

In Spain,
where in the near future the slogan of Soviets could already be put practically
on the order of the day, the very creation of Soviets (juntas), provided
there is an energetic and bold initiative of the Communists, is not to be
conceived of otherwise than by way of a technical organizational agreement with
the trade unions and the socialists on the method and the intervals of the
election of workers’ deputies. To advance, under these conditions, the idea of
the inadmissibility of work with the reformists in the mass organizations would
be one of the most disastrous forms of sectarianism.

Elsewhere in
the same document he writes on the subject of Reformism and the Working Class,

How then is
such an attitude on our part towards the proletarian organizations led by the
reformists to be reconciled with our evaluation of reformism as the Left wing
of the imperialist bourgeoisie. This contradiction is not a formal but a
dialectical one, that is to say. one that flows from the very course of the
class struggle. A considerable part of the working class (its majority in a
number of countries) rejects our evaluation of reformism; in other countries,
it has not as yet even approached this question. The whole problem consists
precisely of leading these masses to revolutionary conclusions on the basis of
our common experiences with them. We say to the non-Communist and to the
anti-Communist workers: “Today you still believe in the reformists leaders whom
we consider to be traitors. We cannot and we do not wish to impose our point of
view upon you by force. We want to convince you. Let us then endeavor to fight
together and to examine the methods and the results of these fights.” This
means: full freedom of groupings within the united trade unions where trade
union discipline exists for all.

No other
principled position can be proposed.[2]

It is
well to remember Trotsky’s words today.

Letter from
Greece

Allow me,
first, to remind you what happened before the agreement
with the Eurogroup. We have to keep in mind that the elections of January
25, 2015 in Greece was not just a banal parliamentary contest but a
dramatic turn in the class struggle in Greece and in Europe: after
five years of a depression deeper than that of the Great Depression in
the US in the 1930s, after an unprecedented social catastrophe
exacerbated by the measures of social cannibalism imposed by the
troika of the EU, the ECB , the IMF, and their servants in the
successive Greek governments, finally the struggles of
a people reduced into a nation of the destitute led to a huge tide of anger of the masses raising to power a left party, for the first
time in the history of a country marked by the civil war of
the 1940s and non-stop anti-communist witch hunts.

The tide
continues to grow, full of hope, despite the confusion
and doubts spread above all by the zigzags of the leadership
of Syriza.

First zigzag: after its victory, Syriza formed a coalition government
with a far right, xenophobic, anti-Semite nationalist party, the Independent
Greeks, linked with the shipowners and the Church, although it could form
a real government of the Left, which, even with only 149 seats among the 300 seats in
Parliament, it could be much stronger politically winning a much broader
political base in society itself. (See my previous essay, The Greek people have shaken the world.) The initial announcements by Tsipras, Varoufakis and other
Syriza ministers defying the EU, the troika, Schauble, Merkel
and the Memorandum, had produced enthusiasm among the
devastated people.

Then,
Syriza once again disappointed its supporters and the people by another
right wing step: its leadership, without even consulting the Party elected
bodies, proposed in parliament as a candidate for the position of the
new President of the Republic, a notorious right winger who
supported and voted for all the austerity measures, an ex- minister in
previous New Democracy governments, Prokopis Pavlopoulos. Within
the party there was anger and criticism. This was evident when the pro-Syriza main evening
newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton published our Call “to
stay faithful to the popular mandate and vote down the right wing candidate”
( Only one abstention was recorded) As many Syriza members
protested to the Party, the following statement was made in Syriza'
s Radio Station Kokkino,

"Unfortunately,
we have only 149 deputies; if we had 180 we could propose ....Savas
Michael-Matsas as a candidate!!!"

A rather
rude joke but it shows that the alternative to an alliance with the Right
should be an alliance - to be avoided - with forces in the revolutionary
Left.

These right
wing openings to hostile bourgeois forces for class collaboration were done
with the excuse that "a broad national patriotic, anti- Memorandum
front" was necessary to face the enormous pressures by
the "ordoliberal" Germany, the EU, the ECB, and the IMF. Syriza
was in any case vulnerable to these pressures as it always
stressed that it will avoid any break from the EU and the Eurozone, and
it considered Grexit a calamity.

John Milios
et al. (Greek left economists and cadres of Syriza) were
correct, in their criticisms later against the agreement with the
Eurogroup, pointing out that by making common cause with Greek
bourgeois interests, Syriza became even more vulnerable to the pressures
and blackmail of a hostile EU led by Schauble's Germany.

The
strategy of Syriza in these "negotiations" was self-defeating. Never
was it prepared for a break and the EU knew this very well. Furthermore,
the Syriza leadership never fully understood, or used, the crisis of Germany itself, which while it is facing the crisis in the Eurozone leading to an anti-austerity rebellion by Greece and the other over-indebted countries of the European periphery, is also facing at the same time the Ukrainian
crisis. It never played the
"geo-political card", threatening, for example, a veto of the EU sanctions against Russia or a withdrawal from NATO. You
have to keep in mind that Greece is situated at the center of the
triangle of wars in Ukraine, Syria/Iraq, and Libya.

On February
20, Varoufakis and Tsipras received an open ultimatum, a
cynical blackmail by the EU Commission under orders from Schauble: either
the Greeks sign immediately the Statement already prepared or the last channel of financing of the Greek banks by the ELA (
Emergency Liquidity Assistance) of the ECB would be cut off, leaving Greece to face a run on the banks and a declaration of insolvency.

We can never
call the result of blackmail by the gangsters of big capital "an
honorable compromise". It is true that the Eurogroup Statement
signed by the Greek side is written in terms of "a
constructive ambiguity" as the EU and Varoufakis had
said. They have changed semantics: the troika is now called "the
institutions", the Memorandum is called "current arrangement",
the dictatorial control by the troika is called "review".

Nevertheless some points are crystal clear:

1. Syriza
abandons its pre-electoral pledge for a negotiated cancellation of
the biggest part of the Greek debt. The Statement clearly and
unambiguously says: "The Greek authorities reiterate their
unequivocal commitment to honour their financial obligations to all their
creditors fully and timely".

2. Even if
the so-called primary surplus of Greece (the surplus after payment for debt and
interests) could be a topic of negotiation taking notice of
the current "conditions of the economy in 2015", nevertheless the
acceptance of the policy for "primary surpluses" as it was imposed on
Greece by the troika in November 2012 is accepted by Syriza
i.e the need to continue austerity to get these " primary
surpluses", larger or smaller. Paul Krugman is, in a sense, right
when he says in the NYT [3] that the Greeks accepted austerity to
"avoid more austerity". But the nightmare of austerity
continues, anyway!

The
crux of the matter is that you cannot fight austerity without cancelling the
debt and you cannot fight against the crashing burden of the debt
without rejecting austerity.

By
surrendering at this point the rest follows: the privatizations already
done are not touched and they will continue for example the privatization of
the Pireus harbor; " labor flexibility" will continue in the
labor market etc. etc. Every step taken by the Greek government in favor of the
people can be considered a forbidden "unilateral measure"
and be punished by pushing Greece into default. Anyway the
agreement is very precarious , it did not resolved the crisis between Greece
and the EU, and it is a factor for new explosions of crisis in the near future.

The problem
is not only that the leadership of Syriza retreated: they declared
the defeat - a victory, and, to add insult to injury, they compared
their agreement with... the Brest -Litovsk agreement of the Bolsheviks with
Germany!!!

Of course,
neither Greek workers or the destitute are idiots nor the Syriza
members themselves. Already there is an internal crisis in
Syriza and it is growing.

Revolutionaries
should not be rejoicing for all this saying to the pauperized people who
invested their hopes in Syriza "you are idiots for supporting Syriza, we told you so" like the Stalinist KKE and many sects do now. From
our side, we are in a continuous dialogue with these people,
patiently explaining what happens, and what are the
disastrous results of the policies of class collaboration with the
EU, the IMF and the Greek bourgeoisie. We are advancing transitional
demands for the cancellation of the debt, nationalization of the banks
and for an emergency program to put an end to austerity, hunger,
unemployment, the humanitarian disaster; furthermore to build
solidarity and coordination with the workers, and social movements
in Europe on an internationalist basis and perspective, against the EU,
for a socialist unification from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

To give you
a more concrete idea, here are two of our current practical
projects together with the self managed VIOME factory workers [4] we are preparing
a national March from Thessalonika to Athens, in a month, mobilizing the people
all over the country against unemployment and privatizations, and concluding in
Athens demanding, among others, a special law to guaranty the rights of
the workers of VIOME.

A second
project is the preparation of our 3rd European Conference early June to
bring together fighters and movements coming from different radical
traditions and struggles to debate and elaborate a program for a
socialist way out from the crisis and a plan for action all over
Europe.

Friday, March 6, 2015

Note: The following is the platform of the workers engaged in the occupation of the ERT television and radio studios in Thessaloniki, Greece. The workers of this public broadcasting institution occupied the facility in June 2013 after the previous government shut down all of the public radio and television facilities in Greece. They have maintained the occupation ever since and have continued broadcasting 24 hours a day in defiance of the government. The new Syriza government, in one of their first official acts, reopened ERT. The workers, however, do not want to return to the old system of bosses appointed by politicians telling them what to do. They are pressing to run the broadcast facility as a worker managed cooperative. The statement from the ERT workers is published below.

Workers self management at occupied Greek
Radio-Television (ERT)

The capitalist crisis saw the closure of Greek
Radio-Television (ERT) but workers not only resisted they took ERT into
collective self management and continued broadcasting. 21 months after its
closure the striking workers still ran 17 radio stations (15 regional, two
national) and a single TV channel (ET3).

The
translation of the texts below has been sent to us by Thanasis, a worker at the
ERT and outline how the workers restructured ERT and what they want Syriza to
respect if funding is returned.

Thanasis
writes " Actually, and in simple words, they fired us but we never left
the building and of course we never took an advance to earn money
(publicity etc) respecting the fact that all these buldings and technical stuff
belong to the Greek people. The new government after having recognized
our struggle decided to re-open the Public Radio-television. Lets hope they
will also incorporate our ideas, those we fought for over the last 2 years.
What you will read is not a dream. Is what we already do everyday and we simply
propose it for the future. "

«THE ERT WE WANT»

TEXT–PROPOSAL issued by the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the WORKERS of FREE
SELF-MANAGED ERT3

On the
occasion of the first anniversary since the government shut down the country’s
public broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) in a coup-like move
on the night of June 11, 2013, we the workers of the Self-managed ERT3 who have
persevered with our independent struggle to keep ERT3 open for over a year now
in order to serve the people by providing regular and independent programming,
we the workers who are convinced of our rights and the oncoming vindication,
are preparing for the “day after” and are hereby presenting our text/proposal
for “The ERT We Want”.

The
following text has emanated through direct-democracy procedures, namely through
the numerous general assemblies organized by the struggling workers of ERT3 in
Thessaloniki. Written word by word by a nine-member working group which was
voluntarily selected through our assembly, the proposal was returned to the
general assembly for approval before it took its final form.

The
proposed text outlines the key principles and aims, the means of financing, the
sector of labor relations, the public’s participation and the model of
«administration» during ERT’s new period of operation.

It is
dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of people who stood by us in solidarity
during all these troubled months, as well as to all the Greeks and other
peoples who have been profoundly affected by the brutal pro-memorandum
government policy of recent years. Yet, it is particularly dedicated to those
who refuse to bow their head and choose to carry on with dignity and unceasing
efforts until the final victory for freedom and real democracy, instead of
yielding in the face of a black regime.

We the
workers of Free Self-managed ERT3 are publicizing this document today, calling
on all of our struggling colleagues throughout the country, on our brothers and
sisters in Athens, in other large cities and in the proud regional stations to
embrace our effort so that we may all together press ahead with dignity.

We call
upon the general public to support the Public Broadcaster we dream of; this
dream is society’s offspring, society gave birth to this dream.

We the
workers of Free Self-managed ERT3 declare: VICTORY IS NEAR, NOT BECAUSE VICTORY
AWAITS US, BUT BECAUSE WE ARE MOVING TOWARDS VICTORY.

«THE ERT WE WANT»

KEY PRINCIPLES AND AIMS

Independent information and quality-driven cultural/entertainment programming
provided by a truly PUBLIC and DEMOCRATIC broadcasting organization constitutes
a public good, not a commodity. Freedom of press, uncensored journalistic work,
absence of “orders” from superiors, cultural creativity and promotion and the
unimpeded conduct of investigative journalism for the good of the general
public, especially for the weaker social groups and movements, all constitute a
uniform and non-negotiable right and obligation.

The
voice of ERT must be transmitted everywhere in Greece and anywhere Greeks
reside in the world. The state has a duty to provide the appropriate and
necessary infrastructure to fulfill this purpose.

Respect
for human rights, both individual and social, is to be enforced by all workers
without exception, for the citizens of the country and the world. ERT’s role is
partly educational; it is to provide quality cultural material, offer an outlet
of expression for the isolated social groups, as well as care for the
advancement of the creative imagination of the younger age groups by
encouraging interactive skills and critical thinking. ERT ensures in practice
the protection of human dignity, while it highlights, denounces and rejects all
expressions of racism, bigotry, sexism, nationalism, state authoritarianism or
any form of discrimination against individuals or groups targeted for their
political / social / trade union action.

ERT
serves society and its needs while it also serves as an embankment to the
phenomena of "social automation-fragmentation-cannibalism", whenever
the given political power attempt to cultivate these traits within the society
based on the logic of "divide and rule". ERT checks the political
power and does not identify with said power, as it is neither a government body
nor an institution at the service of parties and individual or business

The ERT
has been serving the community and its needs, while simultaneously an
embankment to the phenomena of "social automation-hash-cannibalism",
whenever the power of any attempts to cultivate the society based on the
premise of "divide and rule". ERT controls the power and not the same
as it is neither a government body and its mechanisms, or institution of
parties and organized individual or business «circles».

The
general assemblies of workers and the active working folk remain vigilant in
observing these principles and aims at all stages of ERT’s operation, in order
to prevent any attempts at interference, may that be via censorship or other,
regardless of which institution this attempt may stem from. FUNDING The
licensing fee is ERT’s main source of funding; it is not to be utilized for any
purpose unrelated to the public broadcaster’s needs and does not constitute in
any way a funding opportunity for the given government (i.e. transferring a
portion of the licensing fee to state investments in photovoltaics).

The
compensation rate is determined in accordance to income / social criteria.
Those living below the poverty line are exempted from paying the licensing fee.

ERT operates
under a special economic state, i.e. a public utility that cannot be
transferred or sold to private entities. ERT ceases to be a corporation. ERT,
as a public broadcaster that actively exercises its role in providing quality
information, producing programs that serve as public goods and not commodities,
will not become involved in the advertisement genre. The additional financial
needs that will arise, may they be for larger-scale productions or for the
broadcast of breaking news shall be covered by the state.

Excluded
from the no-advertisement clause will be the ERT channel assigned to broadcast
an event that is accompanied by sponsorships.

LABOR RELATIONS

All of ERT employees will be hired under an open-ended work agreement, with
full-time and exclusive employment and insurance rights, without exception.
There will be no differentiation between regular and temporary staff.

All
(de)regulatory rules (articles and clauses on contracts or staff regulations)
that perpetuate the status of short-term contracted employees and instead
conceal fixed and permanent needs in the operation of ERT will become null and
void. "Outsourced program collaborators”, "special advisers" and
"Special Staff Positions" have no place in the new operation of ERT.
There will be no employees transferred from subcontracting companies.

Members
of staff with specialized subject work (cleaning crews, security, cameramen,
etc.) constitute an integral part of ERT’s human resources and they are
individuals hired specifically for the said task, holding the same rights as
all other workers. Any significant new need that may arise to cover
"gaps" in programming shall be met either through the existing
specialized staff and, if this is not feasible, then it shall be covered by staff
that will be hired at ERT with exactly the same employment terms that apply to
the other workers.

The
actual emergencies for external 'seasonal' collaborator or employees with
reduced working hours will be reviewed as special cases by the instituted
bodies of program production, which will undertake to submit detailed proposals
to the body of the General Assembly, which will make the final decisions after
assessing all the facts of each case separately.

PARTICIPATION OF SOCIETY

ERT, as a broadscaster with a truly public service character, is behooved to
pay close attention to the voice of the very society it addresses. To fulfill
this objective, ERT will provide the conditions that enable a participatory
formation of the overall philosophy of the transmitted program.

In
order to avoid overriding the will of the people and the arbitrary
representation of social groups of "factors" and vested interests of
the political, social, economic, self-governing powers, the citizens’ society
shall have first say in the subsidiary influencing of the overall program
philosophy, through its the solidarity structures, social movements,
collectives, or individuals who are experiencing racism and repression,
neighborhood committees, direct democracy grassroots initiatives and the assemblies
of the unions representing the struggling sectors of Greek society. Representatives
of these aforementioned living cells of society will undertake to convey the
decisions of their general assemblies or the views that are shaped as a general
sense of society and, in conjunction with the proposals that will be submitted
to ERT (the program committees and ERT staff assemblies) by representatives of
various scientific meetings / training / professional sectors, a largely
unmediated hearing will have been achieved. This ensures ERT’s truly public
nature, which is not merely addressing the public, but is mainly initiated by
the people themselves.

ADMINISTRATION

Two of the main characteristics of the months-long struggle maintained by the
workers ERT against the government-enforced "black screen", the
self-management of the produced programming and the self-administration of the
struggle, are incorporated as non-negotiable conquests in the new operation of
ERT. The overall philosophy of "administration" is based on direct
democratic procedures, the rotation of the various departments supervisors and
their direct recall, where the main decision-making body, that is the general
assembly of workers, so decides.

The
classic notion of directorship or the position of department
"supervisor" acquires characteristics that have to do with the
ability to exercise a coordinating role in order to improve internal operations
and achieve a better result in the transmitted program. The so-called
'managerial prerogative' is abolished and is replaced by the principle of
respect among equals. The department coordinators (supervisors) shall be
elected by the employees of the department. They are accountable, reviewed and
may be recalled by the General Assembly of the workers. The same stands for the
individual administrations.

Similarly,
the general coordinator (the classic position of general manager) is excluded
from the above outline. The election of the general coordinator is made by the
general assembly of the employees of ERT. In all, the position of the general
coordinator / manager does not hold the power and imposition of a blanket
authoritarian management / operation of ERT, but, instead aims to coordinate
the departments in order to achieve the best quality results for the benefit of
society and the potential for enlargement of the rights and the defense of the
gains of the people, including the right to free and independent information
and quality entertainment.

ADMINISTRATIVE AUTONOMY

ERT, regardless where it broadcasts from, constitutes a unified, public
broadcasting organization, while, concurrently, each and every channel, radio
or digital media of ERT (among them ERT3) maintains its administrative
autonomy. ERT has the necessary human resources and the appropriate broadcasting
infrastructure in every county of Greece, in order to assure that any local or
breaking news in the given regions is covered on the spot.

Solidarity, mutual understanding, respect for autonomy
and coordination among the members of this public broadcaster constitute
prerequisites not only for the implementation and consolidation of internal
direct democracy procedures, but also for the prevention of a
centrally-controlled administration. Nationwide meetings of coordinators and
committees of all broadcasting units in the country will be held at regular
intervals, conveying the decisions of the general meetings of workers and civil
society in order to exchange views, to address weaknesses and to continuously
improve the broadcast program.

The gutter politics of David North

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) edition of May 17 featured a hysterical diatribe against me by the leader of that organization, David North.

Here we are today, 33 years after the split with Healy. Does the fact that North was on the right side of that split confer upon him the legitimacy of a hereditary monarch? Reading North’s comments, one would think that for him the Fourth International is some kind of franchise that he alone can operate. If the continuity of the Fourth International is to have any meaning, other than a ritualistic invocation meant to shore up the flagging morale of one’s followers, it can only be in one’s adherence to the program and theoretical conceptions of the Fourth International. If we examine the political conceptions and organizational practices of the group North has led for all these years it is clear that in all respects it bears little resemblance to the organization Trotsky founded in 1938. It is in fact our exposure of the hollowness of North’s claims to be the inheritor of the mantle of Trotsky that has so infuriated him. Why else would he be spending more time writing about me and Frank Brenner, two individuals, than about the Stalinists, Pabloites and state capitalists?

Trump and the crisis of liberalism

by Frank Brenner

It is tempting to say that 2016 marks the death of liberalism, but that's probably wishful thinking. What is dead, though, is the old 'centrist' political consensus, i.e. the pendulum swings from centre-left to centre-right that made mainstream politics in the West about as predictable (and stable) as an old grandfather clock. Now the swings are much more extreme - or rather the swings to the right are. (One might add that what led up to this was a major shift rightward of the 'center' itself from Reagan/Thatcher on – what Tariq Ali rightly dubbed the “extreme center”.

Lecture: Dialectics of Revolutionary Strategy and Tactics

Alex Steiner gave a talk at the Locomotiva Cooperative Cafe in Athens, Greece on July 9, 2015, shortly after the historic vote for NO - OXI -in the Referendum of July 5. The event was a huge success attracting a packed audience of about 50 people. The talk was sponsored by the Workers Revolutionary Party of Greece (EEK) and was chaired by Savas Michael-Matsas. A Greek translation of this talk is now available. The translation was first published in the theoretical journal of the EEK, Revolutionary Marxist Review, in the issue of November 2015-February 2016. The translation was the work of Eve Manopoulou.

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